Lost Highlander Read online

  “Well, don’t you look like you just got some exercise,” Evelyn said with just the tiniest slur. Sam laughed, and Piper gave them both sour looks.

  “Do you mean the five flights of stairs I just walked up and down, dummy?” Piper shook her head in disappointment at their glasses, and then raised her eyebrows in shock when she saw how empty the vodka bottle was. “Are you two idiots too drunk to take a look at what I found? I think it might be important.”

  “I’m not drunk at all,” Sam said with dignity. “I’m Scottish.”

  Evelyn snickered. “I may be a little bit drunk,” she admitted. “But I want to see what you found.”

  Piper sighed and reached into her top, pulling out a long gold chain with a pendant hanging from it. She held the pendant out in the palm of her hand. They both peered at it, their heads almost touching. Evelyn thought she might be able to feel Sam’s hair brushing against her cheek and got a little shiver.

  Drunken fool, she told herself, and tried to concentrate on the pendant. It was a plain gold disk, about the size of a thick half dollar, with a design stamped into it, rather crudely. It was worn and dinged around the edges, and except for the large size, didn’t seem worth much notice.

  “I saw a design like this on something in the crypt,” Piper said after they straightened up. “I wanted to check it out earlier, but Mellie flat out refused to go with me and I certainly couldn’t ask Lachlan. But now you’re back, we can all go.” She glanced outside. “There’s still some light.”

  Evelyn and Sam looked at each other and started to laugh, Sam quickly recovering himself at Piper’s look, but Evelyn was too tipsy to be able to control it. They’d have to go back in the crypt. Of course. How could there have possibly been another way. When she finally realized they’d really have to go back down, and possibly tonight, she quickly sobered.

  “There’s no light, Piper,” she said, pointing out the window, which was beginning to show their reflections in it. “The sun goes down here at four o’clock.”

  “Yes, but it would be dark in the crypt no matter what time we went, and I really think this is important. If I’m remembering correctly, it was close to Lachlan’s … to the room he’s in. It could be the thing! We’ll all have lanterns, I’ll carry two if you want.” Piper was starting to bob up and down on the balls of her feet, wringing her hands with nerves. Evelyn didn’t think it was just massive amounts of coffee that was causing her to be so off kilter.

  “I’ll go with you now,” Sam said, making Evelyn feel like a world class bad friend. Piper instantly relaxed.

  “Thank you. It’s just that I think something may be really wrong with Lachlan. He was so pale, normally his skin is like burnished copper, but … and his head was really hurting him, I could tell.” Piper turned to Evelyn. “Is there anything in your books about people getting sick from time travelling?”

  Evelyn looked sharply at Sam and he held up his hands as if to say how could he possibly have told her anything.

  “I don’t think so, Piper,” she said reassuringly. “He probably hasn’t slept much in the last few days. We’re all on edge, but him worst of all.”

  Piper looked down so they couldn’t see her face and sniffled. Evelyn sighed forcefully and relented.

  “Well, where are the lanterns? We better get down to the crypt before midnight. God knows there’s probably a full moon tonight on top of everything.”

  Chapter 11

  When all the clouds finally drifted away to reveal a very safe waxing half moon, Evelyn had to admit it made her feel a little bit better. So-called silly superstitions didn’t seem so silly to her anymore. If a unicorn trotted out of the woods and stabbed a leprechaun through its tiny heart with its shimmering golden horn, she probably wouldn’t even blink.

  Leprechauns are in Ireland, she reminded herself and racked her brains for something magical that Scotland might have in its forests. Walking briskly through the cold night helped chase away the last of her pleasant vodka buzz, but her legs were still a little wobbly so she stayed close to Sam, just in case she started to fall on her face.

  She also figured if a werewolf came tearing out of the forest at them, he’d be her best bet to hide behind. Or a regular wolf, she amended. Regular wolves were plenty dangerous. A Highland warrior mysteriously pops up from the eighteenth century and suddenly everything has to be supernatural to be scary. An owl flew overhead with a shriek and Evelyn dropped her lantern and screamed. Piper was several yards ahead of them due to her caffeine energy and whirled around with an empathetic scream of her own.

  “Just an owl!” Sam bellowed, picking up Evelyn’s lantern and squeezing her arm comfortingly. Piper flung out her arms and huffed in irritation, then turned and stomped off.

  “You okay?” Sam asked. Evelyn nodded and was glad the flat light of the lanterns wouldn’t give away her embarrassed blush.

  “It’s just … “ She shrugged and trailed off, reaching for her lantern.

  “I’ve got it,” he said, transferring it to his other hand, awkwardly holding two so he could give her a quick hug, then motioning for her to go on and falling into step beside her. “It’s a bit like American Werewolf in London out here, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “What?”

  “The old film? American tourists are out on the moors? It looks a bit like here. Cloudy night. The one kid gets attacked by a werewolf, and then eats his friends … “ Sam trailed off, realizing he probably wasn’t helping.

  “No, I haven’t seen that,” she said a little more tartly than she should have, not wanting him to know she’d actually been thinking about werewolves. Dear lord, she needed to stop thinking about werewolves. “Thank goodness we’re finally here,” she said when they arrived at the crypt. He laughed.

  “Sorry,” he said when she shot daggers at him. “Who would have thought the crypt would have been the lesser of the evils, right?”

  “Haha.” The padlock was hanging open, and the door was ajar. Piper hollered at them from just inside to hurry it up.

  The inside of the crypt was creepier than Evelyn remembered it, pitch dark and full of dead people. Sam shrugged out of his backpack and pulled out several flashlights. He turned one on and set it upright on the floor in the middle of the small entrance area. He turned on the other two and held them against his torso, under his arms, a lantern in each hand. Piper was also carrying a lantern.

  “Enough light for you?” Sam asked. Evelyn rolled her eyes and grabbed one of the lanterns back from him and pried a flashlight out from under his elbow, her hand brushing against his stomach. He was very firm and she nodded appreciatively to herself.

  If they could ever figure out this nightmare with Lachlan, she’d be very interested in spending more time with Sam. He’d told her he would take her back to Maison Craig for a proper dinner during their regular business hours. She pictured herself in her sequin micro mini and it was all wrong. How could she have thought she’d be able to wear something like that here in this quaint and charming village? This wasn’t Miami Beach, for goodness sake. She’d have to find out where everyone went shopping here, or hope Piper’s great-grandmother had some nice classic little black dresses in a trunk somewhere.

  Lost in thought, she found herself plummeting toward the cold stone ground, and dropped her flashlight which went rolling away down the corridor. Sam grabbed her arm and kept her from falling down the step she’d missed by planning what she was going to wear on their imaginary date after they figured out how to send their visitor from 1729 back to when he belonged.

  “Can you keep it together, back there?” Piper called. The flashlight rolled into her path and she stuck out her foot to stop it. Sam leaned over and scooped it up, handing it back to Evelyn with an encouraging smile.

  “Just a wee bit farther,” he said, keeping his hand under her elbow to steady her.

  He thinks I’m still drunk, she thought. Even though she now felt as sober as a judge from the brisk walk in the cold ni
ght air, and the nearly fatal heart attack from fear due to that damn owl, she decided she’d let him continue to help her along.

  Even with all their lanterns and flashlights, the darkness surrounded them, hemming them into a bubble of light. She’d wanted to light the candles, but it had been a pain in the butt blowing them all out the last time and she’d been outvoted. Sam had grown up in this eery backwater mountain village and was used to dark cold nights and owl attacks, and Piper had seemed to take to it as if she’d also been born here, as if she just hung out in crypts all the time, just a quiet place to get a little reading done. Evelyn felt like she was the only one who was scared half out of her wits and it was beginning to piss her off.

  “Do you think there’re rats down here?” she asked in a whisper. Sam squeezed her arm and moved a little closer to her so he could whisper back.

  “No, probably too cold for them down here. The smart ones are all up in the house.”

  “You’re horrible, she said. He laughed.

  “No laughing,” Piper growled and turned around to give them both filthy looks.

  “Oi, what’s wrong with you?” Sam called, dropping her arm and taking a few long strides to catch up with Piper. Evelyn tried not to make a disappointed noise when he stopped holding onto her and hurried to keep up with them. She wasn’t interested in being the last person in the lineup, ripe for the picking by a disgruntled, deceased ancestor. The image of one of these guys shoving his way out of one of the tombs and shambling toward her in tattered tartan freaked her out so badly that she grabbed Sam’s hand when she caught up with him. He gave her a hint of a smile before turning back to Piper with a look of concern.

  “Nothing is wrong with me,” Piper snapped. “Anyway, look. This is the room, I think.” She started peering at the different names carved into the walls. This room had no busts or statues, just stone plaques marking each person, and their ledges with their belongings. Sam held his lantern up to cast more light onto the stones, and Evelyn started looking at the other end of the room.

  “I found it,” Evelyn called. Sam and Piper came over and they stared at the tomb. The entire wall was engraved with Gaelic words, interspersed with drawings of flowers. The stone ledge had a stained glass box on it, the top of the box decorated with the same symbol as the pendant Piper found.

  “Open it,” she said to Piper, unwilling to touch it. Sam was squinting at the writing on the wall, moving his lantern up and down to read the words that were carved into it hundreds of years ago. Piper shook her head.

  “It’s empty,” she said, staring at the box as if in a trance. “This pendant came from there.” She dangled the pendant over the box. The designs were the same.

  “What does the wall say, Sam?” Evelyn asked nervously. Piper was still vacantly staring at the box.

  “It’s kind of a poem, I guess.” He pointed to the top part of the writing. “Her name was Daria Mcelheny Glen, born 1699, died 1729.” He looked at them. “That’s the year our boy disappeared from,” he told them needlessly and Evelyn motioned for him to keep reading, then glanced at Piper, who was leaning closer to the box.

  “She was a healer, a medicine woman, learned in the arts of plants.” He waved at the carvings of flowers decorating the wall. “Then it’s a bunch of crap poetry about the soul being pure as the white flowers that grow in spring and the birds shall come and take the seeds of anguish from the hearts of those that believe and they shall live evermore for all eternity.” He frowned in distaste.

  “Do you think she knew Lachlan?” Evelyn asked. He shrugged and lowered his lantern.

  “It’s the bones and the blood,” Piper said, not looking at them, not taking her eyes off the glass box. She was clutching the pendant in both hands in front of her chest, holding her breath. Evelyn looked sharply at Sam, who shook his head, eyes wide.

  “What, Piper?” Evelyn said, reaching out and touching her shoulder. Piper blinked and looked at Evelyn, exhaling hard.

  “What?” Piper said, looking down at the pendant in her hands and shaking her head as if to clear it. “See, the design on this is the same as the box.” Evelyn took the pendant from Piper and moved slightly away from the box, nodding.

  “Yes, it is the same,” she said. “But we have no clue what it means, or why this lady here is important, if she’s important.”

  “Who is she, Sam? Can you read it?” Piper asked, turning to him.

  Evelyn felt ice cold fingers of fear travel up her spine and clutch the base of her neck. She rubbed her arms to calm the goosebumps that had erupted. Sam looked at Piper, then at Evelyn and the look on his face did nothing to dispel her anxiety. She leaned over and grabbed her knees, suddenly unable to breathe.

  “Evie, what’s wrong?” Piper was at her side in an instant, patting her back. “I’m sorry, Evie, I know this place freaks you out.”

  Piper took the pendant from Evelyn and slipped it into her coat pocket, then picked up her lantern and flashlight.

  “Let’s go back up to the house. We can figure all this out where it’s warm and cozy, okay, Evie?” She patted Evelyn some more and Evelyn slowly straightened up.

  Piper seemed perfectly fine now. Evelyn nodded, and still feeling like she couldn’t catch her breath, followed Piper out of the room and through the winding corridors of the crypt. Sam stayed behind her, holding his lantern up so there would be minimal shadows, for which she was grateful. But when she turned and saw that his face still had the same stricken look as in the room with Daria Glen’s tomb, the cold hand of fear gripped her tighter.

  ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  Sipping hot chocolate topped with fresh handmade marshmallows, in front of a roaring fire back in the kitchen of the manor house did nothing to calm her nerves, or even warm her up. Evelyn felt as if the chill had seeped even deeper than her bones, to her very marrow, and that she may never be warm again. She shivered as Piper flitted around the kitchen, humming softly to herself as if nothing at all had happened, putting together a tray to take to Lachlan.

  “It’s ridiculous that he’s way up on the fifth floor with no electricity,” she said to the room at large. “I’m going to make him move down with us onto the second.”

  Sam sat down by the fire that he had built when they first returned to the house, as Piper chattered about taking a snack to Lachlan and finding out if he knew anything about Daria Glen. Evelyn huddled close to the fire and snuck glances at Sam, who contined to look uneasy.

  While he had deftly stacked the wood and then turned it into the crackling blaze she was now being somewhat comforted by, she couldn’t help but admire how capable he was, how useful. She’d never seen anyone build a fire in a fireplace, except by turning a gas jet or lighting one of those three hour duraflame logs. He’d taken his coat off and pushed up his sweater sleeves so they wouldn’t get dirty and she’d been mesmerized by the muscles flexing in his forearms as he carried the logs and piled them expertly in the hearth.

  Piper manically arranged cookies and fruit and tea things on the tray, then nodded dumbly as she left to take it to Lachlan. Sam rubbed his hand over his face and cracked his neck. Evelyn slurped up one of the fat homemade marshmallows, a thing she hadn’t known existed before, and now could never live without, and rolled it around in her mouth, swallowing it quickly and sheepishly when Sam turned to her.

  “Are we agreed that something weird happened down there in the mausoleum?” he asked.

  She nodded slowly. “Something,” she said. “But what?”

  He stood up and started pacing. It made her tired. Glancing at the clock she saw that it was barely nine o’clock.

  “Listen, Evelyn, do you really think that Lachlan came here by … unnatural means?”

  “You mean by magic?” she asked.

  He scowled and threw up his hands and kept pacing. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “I honestly don’t know,” she said. “In the books, sometimes it’s magic, a spell or a wish or just bad luck, being in the wrong place at the w
rong time. Sometimes it’s fairies or a witch.” Her voice was rising and she felt the slightest beginning of hysteria coming on. Breathing slowly out of her nose, she continued. “Sometimes it’s aliens or an object, sometimes it’s completely batshit unbelievable, sometimes there’s actual physics involved and machinery and specialists.” She put her face in her hands and started to cry.

  “No,” Sam said, coming over and kneeling in front of her. “Nope. We don’t have time for that. Right?” He laid his hand gently on her knee and waited for her to stop.

  Realizing he was right, because it was possible that Lachlan really was degenerating, or at the very least his absence from his own time might be causing all sorts of changes to history, and something was definitely not right with Piper, either. Cry later, she thought. Taking a huge snuffling inhale, she breathed out again shakily and offered Sam a weak smile.

  He pulled his sweater sleeve down over his thumb and wiped her tears away. “Good lass,” he said. “Should we call it a day, do you think?”

  She nodded and he stood up, took her hands and pulled her to a standing position. They walked to the staircase and started the long climb.

  “I think it may have to be magic,” she said about halfway up. “As awful as it is.”

  “It is awful,” he said.

  “I wish it could have been a time machine, that we found in the forest. And it would have instructions in Gaelic and you could read it off to us.” They stopped in front of Evelyn’s door and Sam laughed.

  “Well, we haven’t looked in the forest yet, have we?”

  “I’m worried about Piper,” Evelyn said, leaning against the doorframe.

  “Aye, me too. About all of it.” Sam tapped her on the nose and smiled ruefully. “But you’re cooked. Get some sleep. I’m awake at the crack of dawn every day so if you’re up, come find me. We’ll go out in the woods and look for a bloody time machine and figure out what’s up with Piper. Okay?”